One of the fun parts (if there are any) about looking for work as a director in educational theatre is the challenging task of concretely expressing exactly WHAT you will do with the kids once you get there. A friend of mine was fond of calling Easter “the big Kahuna” of Christianity- the big Kahuna in educational theatre is, as I’ve noted before, expressing the inexpressible.
So now, as I look for work, I find myself trying to do just that. For weeks now, I’ve explored the idea of theatre with the very young. Here’s the result of those ruminations.
Years ago, I realized that the secret to doing high school theatre well is to run as far away from the words “high school” as quickly as possible. Those words, grouped with the word theatre, make “high school theatre.” Dangerous wording. Reasons? If you’ve been to more than one or two high school plays, you’ve seen bad theatre.
How can I say this with such confidence? I’ve seen high school theatre. Generally, there are a few marks of traditional “high school theatre.” First off, acting. There are plenty of good acting teachers out there, and they often create good actors for mediocre productions. The teacher sinks so much effort into the good ones that she leaves the rest behind, resulting in an uneven play. We’ve all seen those. Second, costuming. The standard routine is to call a costume house and have them ship in all of the costumes for the play. That’s terrific in that you get great costumes (if slightly tattered and smelling of napthalene), but there is no design element in play. Opening the boxes of costumes is great fun for the actors who miss the qualities that costumes designed to meet a director’s vision miss. This leads to scenery, the thing you can’t fake. If it’s bad, it’s bad. If you’ve painted in a palette of colors that doesn’t match the costumes, it’s worse
Here’s the thing though- most audiences don’t blame anyone for the horrific three hours they’ve spent- they accept that it was high school theatre and move on with the illegal video of the show and memories of their child’s success (or lack thereof.) And as to the young actors, they actually come to believe that the bad is good. Standing ovations for mediocrity lend to that belief. If you doubt me, think on this.
The worst musical I ever directed (No, No, Nanette) was doomed from the start. Rented costumes, a forgettable set, bad choreography, and worst of all, dancers moving through the audience flinging tea bags during “Tea for Two” all helped create a disastrous piece of high school theatre. However, a funny thing happened on the way to awful. Not unlike Max Bialystok, I was stunned when the audience, stars of stage and screen included, rose to a thunderous standing ovation at the end of each show. I was stunned by the moments, and recognized that if this gets standing ovations, then there is something wrong with the standards of the high school audience. And if that’s true, what can possibly be inferred about other school theatre audiences? Gilbert and Sullivan likely spend a substantial amount of time rolling in their graves as middle school audiences endure yet another Pirates of Penzance.
Take a step closer to where creativity begins, and I fear it starts to get worse. Once you’ve arrived in elementary school, the unknown “they” have started to call it “Creative Dramatics” instead of theatre. Translated, that phrase means creative action, as if there has been no creative action from children before- you must teach it to them.
Now, wind the clock back even further into the earliest years of a child’s awareness. Lots of games, lots of simple plays, and lots of theatre without a complete focus comes to fruition. So how do you fix it? First, throw out the notion that the plays we’ve been doing with kids are worthwhile because they teach “other” skills.
You don’t teach math to help with self-confidence, or history to create better communicators. You teach them for the validity of the subject material, and to aid the student in developing a concrete manner of processing and synthesizing material. Kids communicate well to start with- laughter, yelling, crying- these all do a heck of a job communicating what’s up with a child. It’s the communication they don’t do well that is the domain of the theatre.
Thiers’s is a world fraught with uncertainty- monsters in the closet, Santa Claus and the Easter bunny- extremely real fantasies. They are challenged though (and in some cases, not emotionally able) to communicate in the way that good theatre demands. So what is one to do? One school of thought seems to accept that bad will be bad, and if you dress them up well enough and make sure they don’t screw up, bad will be good.
I propose a different tack. Theatre in and of itself is the simplest and oldest of art forms. All you need are two people communicating (and agreeing on what is communicated) to create theatre. Look it up- it’s true. We know, because we have seen it again and again, that young children are wholly capable of creating good performances and supporting the work of others. Some are tricked into it, but the final result is the same. Great acting. Anna Paquin and Tatum O’Neal carry Oscars- can others do the same? Of course they can
There is of course a simple argument- these successful child actors are unique talents and should not be lumped in with the vast numbers of children who don’t have the same gift. And of course, the naysayers are correct- special is special and casting directors search high and low for “special” kids who can pull adult performances out of their lunch sack. But- does that mean we cannot attempt to teach all children to create effective theatre? Of course not. And in the arts, that is the meat of the matter. A child may create a dreadful painting, but we attempt to teach them to paint well. A child may sing a song adequately, but we work to teach them to sing brilliantly. A child may write well, but we always work to teach them to write better. We don’t always succeed, but the art is the center of the question. So whither the theatre?
I propose a more direct approach. While fully aware of the difficulty involved, those teachers blessed to work with the young should be teaching them theatre from day one. No tasks to simply entertain, or kill time. More importantly, no tasks for the young actor that are simply drawn from a book, without concrete understanding of purpose. For high school age actors, I’ve always made a clear distinction. “You are not doing high school theatre” I say- “You are doing theatre in a high school setting.” For the youngest actors it should be the same- it’s not Pre-K theatre, it’s theatre in Pre-K. If you accept that premise, then you’ve made an enormous leap. The children will show what they can really do in the construct of a play or piece of theatre, and they will learn as actors should. Their self-awareness will grow not because we’ve taught them, but because it’s a logical outgrowth of the work.
Therefore, I advocate for a new theatre of the young- a wondrous place where spectacular things can happen. Frankly, the prospect of tapping into the creative power of children to make theatre is more than simply exciting- it’s the way we keep theatre alive and protect its future.
